“There’s a little color there, or I’m mistaken,” Mundon wisely remarked, as he scanned the sediment. “Yellow’s the color I’m looking for.” “Well, there’s some yellow in that. Hold it up to the light. Now, it does shine! I’ll be hanged if it don’t!” “Goodness knows, I want to see it as much as any one!” said Ben; “but I’m afraid this is too much like imagination. It reminds me of the time people thought they saw flying-machines in the sky.” Mundon shook his head. “I ain’t that kind,” he remarked, as he returned to his work of constructing the “jigger.” “After all,” he continued, “you can’t tell much about it till you make the ’speriment in the proper way. This machine’ll settle it one way or the other.” He worked rapidly and skillfully, and by the following night the “jigger” was completed. “My!” he exclaimed as he drove the last nails. “It was luck, blind luck, my meetin’ that feller and his tellin’ me jest exactly what I wanted to know!” “One thing will be very funny,” said Ben. “I was just thinking that we’ll have to ship our bullion--when we get it--up to the Searby Smelting Works at Vallejo to be resmelted and cast into bars. They were the original owners of it.” “Funny enough for us,” Mundon replied. “But I don’t count on shippin’ ’em any.” “How’ll we get it into bars?” “I’ll git it into bars, myself. You didn’t know that I was an assayer, too, did you?” “No,” Ben thoughtfully replied. “I think I’ve found my trade at last. Mundon, if I’ve got brains enough I’ll be an assayer.” “Why not a mining engineer? Might as well aim fur the highest while you’re about it.” “That’s so. But that takes more money. If I get enough out of this, I’ll try for it.” CHAPTER VIII GOLD IN THE “JIGGER” “It’s nearly time for us to know ’bout where we stand,” remarked Mundon, as he flung several shovelfuls of mortar, brickdust, and soot into the “jigger.” He then added some quicksilver to the mass. “There, I guess that’ll do fur this time. Now, we’ll churn the cream and see if we kin git any butter.” “Perhaps it isn’t cream,” Ben suggested, more to hear Mundon reassure him than anything else. “No; p’raps it ain’t,--p’raps it’s only skim milk. Well, in that case we won’t git any butter. But I’m a-bettin’ on it’s bein’ cream.” When Mundon took some of the amalgam from the dirty water and washed it clean, Ben knew that the time of reckoning had arrived. “Ain’t feelin’ faint, are you, Ben?” Mundon facetiously inquired. “I orter brought some smellin’-salts along. Well, I’ve got a ticklish sort of feelin’ myself.” He placed the amalgam in a piece of buckskin. This he squeezed until the larger part of the quicksilver had been pressed through the skin. He did not tell Ben, but he knew from long experience that the result was satisfactory. Ben read his thoughts in his face. “Tell me it’s all right, Mundon! I can see by your face that it is, but I’d like to hear you say it! Tell me!”